Workshop to advise business owners, start-ups on goals

Thursday

Nov 8, 2012 at 9:00 AMNov 8, 2012 at 9:59 AM

Potential business owners, or those with existing businesses, will have an opportunity Monday to explore new opportunities that can give their businesses high-growth potential while helping them to succeed in rural Morehouse Parish.

By Vicki Adams

Potential business owners, or those with existing businesses, will have an opportunity Monday to explore new opportunities that can give their businesses high-growth potential while helping them to succeed in rural Morehouse Parish.
Representatives with Louisiana Tech University Technology Business Development Center are offering a workshop to help turn business ideas into action. The workshop, FYI: Find Your Idea, is geared toward generating ideas for new business opportunities.
“This is a way for people to get their ideas down on paper,” said I-20 Accelerator Project Program Director Miriam Russell.
Kay King, Morehouse Economic Development Corp. president, participated in a version of the university's workshop that is similar to the one that will be offered next week.
“I was really impressed with it,” King said. “It helps people who want to start a new business and don't know what to do. It's also good for existing business owners who want to become more knowledgeable about how to better promote their business.”
King said the workshop consisted of speakers with experience in making a business successful.
“They offered exercises for the class to participate in which promoted creative thinking,” she said. “They got people to consider certain factors in starting a new business like, would it bring in enough customers? And would it create a profit?”
Russell said the instructor at the workshop will be Kathy Wyatt, director of the Louisiana Teach University Technology Business Development Center.
“We're trying to get people involved,” Russell said. “After we talk with them and get an idea of what they want to do, we can figure out how to better work with them beyond that.”
Information offered at the workshop will include: generating ideas for new business opportunities, hearing about successful examples, applying techniques that help prioritize among multiple options and assess business feasibility, qualifying for additional counseling and assistance and learning about intensive business acceleration programs.
“We have a lot of young people that are fresh out of school and want to go into business for themselves, but don't know how to get started,” King said. “This will help them out tremendously. This will also help people find ways to breathe life back into their existing business.”
The FYI workshop will be from 9–11 a.m. on Nov. 12 at the Police Squad Room in the Bastrop City Hall. The workshop is free. Handouts will be provided to everyone that registers in advance by emailing tbdc@latech.edu or call 318.257.3537.